How Facebook Is Trying to Kill Independent Media

Is the Internet Really Free?

For years we’ve been sold the lie that the internet was the last great refuge for the freedom of speech. We are told time and time again how the internet has helped small business and independent media sites compete with the large corporations of the world.

But is that really true anymore? Was it ever true?

What most people fail to realize, is these corporate powers have rigged the system. The whole thing is complete bullshit! 99.9% of people who use the internet use one of three search engines to find their information. They primarily use one social network to communicate with their friends and family, and most of the video and news consumed online is done so through YouTube.

What’s the problem?

That’s a lot of power in the hands of a couple large internet corporations. Now I know the powers that be would like you to believe that these corporations can do no wrong, but a growing number of people are starting to wake up to the fact that these large internet corporations are manipulating what you see, choosing when you see it, and determining how you share it with your friends and family.

“What that can’t be” you say.

Well then let me share with you a small example of how the system is becoming increasingly rigged against small independent news websites. In fact, I’ll share with you an example from my own site.

The picture above is what I have to spend in order to have my posts shared with my friends and followers on Facebook. You see, Facebook has a new policy that completely screws independent news companies, and small business owners.

Even though over 15,000 people have subscribed to receive our updates, via our facebook page, the corporate bigwigs over at Facebook have decided that you no longer get to choose which type of media you actually see. If I want my posts shared with the 15,000 people who specifically asked to receive that post through facebook, I will now have to pay over $75 per article. If more people subscribe, that price will go even higher.

Well, I can’t do that. I’m not selling products, I’m reporting on the news, and helping people become better prepared.

So Facebook has effectively censored my posts, along with hundreds of thousands of other small business people and independent media companies, in favor of promoting posts that can now only be purchased by major media companies and large corporations.

Yes, we still have our loyal readers who come directly to the site, but how long will that last?

With a growing number of companies following the Facebook model of Censorship, the internet will soon resemble the crap we see on T.V. – A couple of large corporations deciding what we can and can’t see, what news we can and can’t hear about, and what product and services the drones should buy.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

Fight back using their own technology against them. At first I though about leaving Facebook altogether, but then I realized I would be helping to perpetuate the problem. Sometimes the best way to fight the war is from within the enemy’s camp. While I refuse to share anything created by the corporate media; I will continue to share my posts (even if only a fraction of the people actually see them) I hope you’ll do the same.

While I am in no way against people making money, I would rather see small business owners have the opportunity to compete. What’s most ironic about that statement is the fact that companies like Facebook are the ones out there talking about “greedy business owners” and supporting candidates who talk about the “evils of capitalism”, all the while screwing the small guy every chance they get.

Share and Promote independent media. The Corporate bigwigs have all the money in the world to promote their propaganda. The only way we can fight back is to start setting up our own networks and promoting each other. As part of this effort we list a number of survival websites and then promote it on ever page on this site. We will soon be setting up a section for independent news media. While technically some of these people may be our competitors; if we don’t stand together, pretty soon none of us will have a voice.

While I may not agree with everything that’s said on some of these sites, at least the opinions expressed are not scrubbed through mass media filters.

Break out of the Matrix. Although I still think we should use some of these systems to spread other independent viewpoints – especially to those who haven’t woken up – it’s time to start networking outside the system.

Visit other independent websites.

Join the discussion and talk to people who are commenting at the end of articles.

Instead of wasting your time commenting on Facebook, where they decide who sees the message, start engaging in conversations with people on this site and other sites like it.

In fact, if you have a unique point of view or think you can help people who visit this site, please join the conversation.

Agree Dirk, but before “they start to shift your thinking” and mine too, all options must be considered. Funny, Obama and Romney are not “all options” though and the debates are sanitized by the Commission on Presidential Debates.
Next Tuesday night at 8 PM Central there is another debate that will be streamed live and foreign media will be present; and real questions will be debated.

On the ‘news feed’ of FB there is a tiny ‘sort’ button at the top. You can sort by most recent. And only your friend’s stuff pops up. The downside to this is that most people don’t know about it and also that it automatically resets every time to it’s default setting. So, you have to sort by most recent every time you go to the news feed.

Facebook is now a public company – “although always backed by DARPA, NSA and CIA”. As a public company, Zuckerhead….reports to his shareholders first….not the customer. Thus he has to do anything to always show and prove higher and higher revenues.

All public company CEO’s report to their investors first….then to their customers…and never report to their employees.

Facebook has to drive at least 20 Billion in new revenue……because the investors just gave Zuckerhead the money a few months ago….He’s got to give it back…..it’s just a loan from the investors……get it!

Fair? All shareholder-controlled organisation screw consumers and employees to enhance profits. Contrary to propaganda this is not necessary. Investors, foreign or otherwise, are not needed. Example: Australia’s vast Snowy River hydroelectric and urban water reticulation Scheme was developed by the publicly-owned Commonwealth Bank, using the nation’s mineral, infrastructural and human resources as colateral. Not one cent of debt or interest ensued. (This policy is pursued in the US by the Public Banking Institute). Private enterprise is great; free trade and exploitative capitalism destroy the many to enrich the few.

I am thinking we should start another facebook…I have thought this since they started with all that privacy shit.

I have asked potential investors, but nothing really came about…they all said it would too much going against fb, I do not feel that way. They bought off zuckeman—giving him huge dollars to go “public” so they could start the whole spying on people…

People are already working on it, the problem is the herd is fixated on facebook and won’t try anything else. Open source, community built, AND peer to peer (so government/corporations can’t shut it down by killing server(s) aka Napster) is what I would LOVE to see replace facebook.

If I am right, there is already a spontaneous movement away from facebook. People are begining to see through it. Dirk is right. Although I have yet to carry news, I am providing contextualised articles and papers for the anti-NWO resistance movement on my Australian site oziz4oziz.com/ where people can grasp the vastness and complexity of the seventeen elements of globalisation in a mere 50 pages; plus many myths about government and UN policies exposed. This will save readers hundreds of hours wasted on books of dubious alacrity. We also have an active revolutionary wing.

Think about it for a second. FACEBOOK…A college dorm room idea goes viral and 90 Million people sign up in approx 2 years…now close to a Billion in what…5-7 years ’cause it’s a really cool idea…. really…. really….

Who paid for the servers, redundancy, fail over, bandwidth….marketing…employee salaries….

Look how long it took Oracle, GE, Microsoft, SAP, Quickbooks to reach a Billion People …over 20 years easily….

But Facebook and Google can do it in just 5-7 years. hhhmmmm When Obama said you didn’t built that…..this is exactly what he was referring to. It takes the full force of Government and Billions to make these things happen. That’s why the IPO was such an inside job…. The investors were mostly Government agencies…. who wanted their money back. Now that they can track virtually every thought, attitude and activity and search of 1 BILLION PEOPLE.

So to start your own Facebook or to compete with FACEBOOK…. no serious investor “in the know” will touch it. If they have enough money to try… their smart enough to know FACEBOOK is rigged and backed by Government.

Case in point…. Open source…which I am an advocate…. Linux, FireFox, SUN, JAVA …etc… took 10 years to get any serious market share.

i noticed awhile bk that i wasn’t getting much in my news feeds pg. i went and checked some pages directly and indeed there were many things i had not seen. i found that if i scrolled across the Like button for hte page it gave me an option to add that pg to an Interst Group. i opened several dif Interest Groups and sorted my Loked Pages into them. i have a section on the left side on my Home Page that lists those Interest groups. i read through my news-posts from friends. then i click on each of the Interst grops and see all of their posts. can keep up on them if i scroll through several times a day.

I disagree….you should sign up….especially since you have this site and some real and forward thinking. Just don’t use it like every schmo on it. Use it to learn how the beast works….know thy enemy as it were.

There are other social network options. For example, there is a new one I have recently joined called Awareness Act ( http://www.awarenessact.com ) where they promote freedom of speech and don’t censor anyone. The best part of it is that they are in the beginning stages of membership and that means many years of free speech until they, too, become corrupted by money. This is just one example. There is also Facebookoff and many others out there. Consider moving to one of them.

I still have a FaceBook account, 4 actually. One of them has my name on it and I use it to read what my friends post. In the past year I have made three posts on that site and maybe sent a handful of messages to people about my wedding and that is it. When using a system that is monitored, know what you are posting, saying or endorsing. My other accounts are all set up with varios alliases simply because I felt like messing with the system.

We must stand together in this world. The more we allow them to categorize and label us, the less we become. As one, we have more power than any corporation or legislative body. We ARE in control here. It is our labor, our dollars, our ideas, dreams and lives that make this world work. WE have the POWER!

I think you’re failing to see that Facebook is a company/business. It requires money to be run. It requires money to be maintained. Just like with any kind of promotion, advertisement, sharing of your thoughts and words, it is going to take time and money to do so, unless you’re doing it verbally on the street corner. Why should Facebook not be allowed to capitalize on the services they are providing you? I challenge you to make a website that gets the following Facebook does, run it as efficiently, and do it for free. It won’t happen. Sorry to be the Devil’s advocate, but this is just one of the many reasons the big companies have so much power…so many people would rather take and complain about what they don’t get for free, instead of working for things.

I have no problem with them making money, they’ve always had ads on their site. This article has nothing to do with them making money through advertising.

What I have a problem with, is them using a bait and switch scam. They’re the ones who told everyone the site was always going to be free to users. In fact they encouraged businesses to build Facebook pages and to interact with their customers under the lie that these pages would remain free. Facebook states that the site is “free to users”; well that’s simply not true.

Some of these companies have spent a small fortune building their Facebook presence, for Facebook to turn around and tell them they now have to pay to talk to your own friends and fans is pretty screwed up. It’s basically a bait and switch scam. Some of these companies already paid for and used Facebook ads to attract people to their Facebook business pages after Facebook convinced them they would be able to freely use that page to talk to their followers.

I see your point and I do agree that Facebook was sneaky and manipulative in their tactics to attract more users. However, again, playing Devil’s Advocate, can a business be defined as a user? Are small business not still allowed to use, updated, and access their Facebook page free of charge?

Based on the information you have provided, they are charging for that information to be shared via news feed with all followers, but they are not charging for anyone to access that page, from what I understand. Do I think that Facebook played fair? No, but business often works that way.

Also, when I mentioned advertisement, I did not mean the actual ads that are on the side bars. I was referring to the Facebook page its self as a form of advertisement.

Ok to solve this issue under Facebook. Go to off grid survivals page here https://www.facebook.com/survivalwebsite?fref=ts
If you haven’t already done so click like. Now hover the mouse over where it says liked. YOu’ll see the option to add to interest lists. This should keep the posts coming to you everytime.

I have 200 “friends” and a bunch of pages I follow. It can’t all fit so they use algorithms to determine what is in your top stories list if you haven’t specified specifically what you want to see and more is available then would normally be put there. All that has changed is companies can now buy their way higher up that list.

I don’t view this as intentional evil by facebook so much as an attempted money grab. Their company value has been plummeting after going public because they don’t make anywhere near enough money to justify what it was set at. They’ll be doing lots of this crap in the future.

I get allot business from FB but the LIKE page extortion is getting just stupid.None of us would be on there if we could afford stuff like 75.00 advertising,fb is really screwing the pooch with that one.First you get punished if you have more then 5000 friends so they force you to make a like page that if it doesn’t have a zillion friends nobody sees it.

Isn’t that just for the option to PROMOTE a post, as your screenshot shows? You don’t have to promote every post…
From Facebook’s FAQ about promoting:
“If I don’t promote my post, will people still see it?
Yes. Posting works the same way it did before. When you share a post it gets delivered to the audience you specify. ”

About everything else you said in regards to a few corporations having a lot of power in their hands from the “typical” internet user, that is not the fault of the corporations. If the people using the internet do not want to use additional means to find information, that is their own fault.

I have noticed a decline in the numbers for my facebook interaction. I won’t pay the top dollar to promote my posts, but I don’t have a problem paying $5 or $10 to make sure I at least get an important post out to a bigger number than the free posts – and then hope with enough people seeing it that way it creats more visability and I won’t have to pay for the higher dollar amounts. I do think they did a big bait and switch here – which sucks – but then I get a lot of business from being a resource and staying connected to my clients through facebook which they like so I won’t stop using it. Proven to be way to valuable in my being connected with the niche market I serve.

I also have a page on facebook. I noticed a sharp dropoff on the stats when they should have gone up. I’m probably going to switch to going with a blog as primary and facebook as secondary. I don’t think it is going to make a difference for sales for me.

Yep. I used to love Facebook so much because it gave the small guys a voice and a chance. Now they are pissing me off every day.
I understand they need to make money but they are taking away why they were so great in order to do it. Giant fail

What am I thinking? Rupert! Like Fox; fair & balanced, my bung hole! They might of cleared the airways of analog broadcasting so that they could implement this smart (bs) tech and to run HA^RP (DARPA ETC) more effectively, you ever wonder whats killing the flocking birds? well, they interfered w/the technology, u bet!

First me blog had a bogus warning label stuck on it by Google about an hour after someone in Obama’s office was looking at it. That’s probably just a coincidence. On Facebook, my links always have fake warning labels attached to them to discourage anyone from reading them. I’m running for president and tried to campaign on Facebook since I don’t have bribe money to go on TV like my corrupt opponents from the dems and reps. I like your idea.